“We do it together,” Raze ordered. “We’ll have half a breath before the soldiers are on us. Azalus and I will jump first. We’ll hold them off long enough for you to follow. Don’t hesitate. Now!”
Both men swung. Glass exploded, and Nallea let out a sharp cry. “Follow me,” Azalus said to her. “Don’t delay.” His boot crunched on the serrated shards, and he was gone. Raze gripped his father’s arm, received a nod, and then he too climbed on the sill and jumped.
He landed on the heap of garbage and sliced his knee on a fragment of glass. The clash of swords rang in his ears. Azalus, recovered from his fall, faced the first of the men posted at the base of the stairs. Raze scrambled to his feet and ran into the fray as the other soldiers thundered down the steps. “Jump!” he shouted at the window and swiped his blade low, opening a thigh. He rotated in, jammed an elbow into a throat that left his assailant gasping, and drew his knife, steel comfortable in both hands.
“Where are they?” he shouted at Azalus. His blade evaded a block, stabbed over a soldier’s shoulder, and slashed open the man’s jaw on the retreat. Samoth’s sword flickered and twisted, spun over his head and lashed out, an extension of Raze’s arm.
Focus fully engaged, he lost himself to the soul he’d swallowed, surrendered to the deliberate dance Samoth applied to all facets of his life. He became the sword, pushing and receding, learning his opponents, how to anticipate and control their moves. His skills sang, the fight in full motion, the feeling of invincibility exhilarating. Raze grinned, reliving old battles in an old war. He stepped to Azalus’s aid and drew off one of his brother’s attackers. His steel parried an off-balance jab and swiped up under an armpit, nearly severing the man’s arm.
He swung around and peered at the windows. A woman growled and hammered her sword down, aiming to cleave his shoulder from his body. Unprepared to defend, he dodged away and forced her to follow. Two-handed he blocked another strike, jammed his barely healed hand on his crossguard, and ducked inside her reach with a pain-filled curse. His forehead smashed her nose. Blinded, she stumbled backward.
Azalus staggered, his skills outstanding but no match when facing multiple assailants. They couldn’t wait any longer. Something had gone wrong. “Azalus!” Raze gritted his teeth and fought a path to his brother. “We need to run.”
“Nae!” Azalus evaded a fatal stab, his eyes wild.
“Brother, they aren’t coming.” Raze’s dagger bit into a woman’s ribs, and his sword shaved the skin from a soldier’s scalp. “We have to run. You can’t help her if you’re dead.”
Fresh soldiers loped around the corner. Azalus roared his frustration, charged at the armed barrier blocking their escape. Raze bulled in beside him, all finesse abandoned for a path to freedom. He stabbed and slashed, and when the line broke open, he shoved Azalus through, and they ran.
The pursuit was halfhearted and fizzled out in the mid-city. Raze leaned on an alley wall, pulling in a draught of air. Azalus bent over, hands on his knees. “They have our father. They have Nallea.”
“The bait to draw us in. Kyzan knows we’ll come after them.” Raze didn’t air the possibility, but their father might already lay dead in that second-floor room. “Benjmur will protect Nallea.”
“I know.” Azalus straightened. “But I’m going to kill him anyway.”
“Nae.” Raze blew out a breath. “It would ruin Nallea. He’s mine.”
~40~
Danzell jogged beside Johzar. They cut south along the harbor roads, then climbed to the mid-city. Dusk leeched the color from the world. The storm that had loomed on the eastern horizon rolled overhead with a coolness boding rain. Her future hovered with the clouds, this night her first as Empress or the last of her life.
“You have a choice,” Johzar said as if he’d browsed through her mind. “We could leave Ezar, travel the lands of the Far South or east to the Arrale.”
“We?” She eyed him.
“I would see you safely there, lady.”
“I’m capable of seeing to my security.”
“Two is safer than one.”
“True.” Their pace slackened. The climb stole her wind, and Johzar’s ankle caused faint winces with the effort. His offer both flattered and touched her.
And maybe if she weren’t a Tegir, or if Kyzan hadn’t plotted her murder, she would choose a different future. In truth, years of choices had narrowed the possibilities open to her. She’d swallowed the wisest souls of her people, and though her heart longed for the wild passion of life without responsibility, the ancients lent her a thoughtfulness that her father, and now her brother, lacked. Too many others were involved, among them friends and allies, but also all those dependent on their rulers, their lives too precious to waste. The future of her nation and those lands conquered by her people lay at her feet.
She paused, caught her breath, and faced him. “Johzar, I’m grateful for your kindness. You’re a strange mix, and I would enjoy discovering what else lies beneath your slaver’s armor. Perhaps when this night is over, I’ll take that chance. But this moment, I bear only one mission. Indulge me, and I might return the favor over morning tea in the palace.”
He reached behind her neck and kissed her with a sweetness that almost changed her mind, and she surrendered for a few brief heartbeats to the dream.
“That was in case there’s no tomorrow,” he whispered.
A wry harrumph sounded behind Danzell’s back. Johzar stepped away and she spun.
Draeva and the rest of Johzar’s crew glided from the shadows between two buildings. The woman cocked her head toward the harbor. “We saw soldiers marching for the Flask and Fishes. You want us there or with you?”
Danzell glanced uphill at the palace and Temple, towering symbols of Tegir’s supremacy in Ezar. “Raze should be long gone before the soldiers get there. So, it’s with us or the palace.”
“Any sign of Sajem?” Johzar asked his second.
The tattooed woman’s lip curled. “Hiding. Otherwise, I’d have sunk an arrow in his back.”
“The palace, then.” Johzar beckoned Draeva closer. “Spread out. Watch the doors and gates and look for a way in. Don’t engage until Danzell and I provide the guards with a bit of a diversion, and no unnecessary risks until choices run dry. It’s almost dark. Give us an hour.”
“Will do.” Draeva issued further orders and the crew dispersed. She headed straight up a steep bank of steps.
“Draeva,” Johzar called, and she turned. “Be careful.” She quirked a smile, mocked a salute, and continued up.
When the crew climbed out of earshot, Danzell resumed her march, quickening her pace. “You don’t want them with us. Do they know what we plan?”
“Nae.” He limped beside her. “Bad timing for a debate on the mysteries of life and death. Some might take exception.”
“You?”
“I won’t say I’m comfortable with it, but I trust you…and that stray soul of yours.”
“Laddon.”
At the mention of his name, he surfaced ahead of her and walked backward up the road. “You’ve nothing to fear in freeing souls.”
Danzell replied with a nod, unwilling to acknowledge his presence and engage in another discussion in front of Johzar. Time to focus. She’d burned souls before, and the skies hadn’t rained fire. Nor had the seas swelled and engulfed the land. No one screamed bloody agony inside her head.
The Temple of Souls rose from the city’s crest, a ghostly spire piercing the black felt of clouds. It appeared to adjoin the palace, but in truth, thick granite walls separated the two structures. What she’d always believed was an engineering oversight now filled her with thankfulness. If only she felt as confident that the city wouldn’t burn as well.
“We’re going in the front door,” she said as they closed the distance. “Too many witnesses through the refectory.”
“I suppose you brought a key?”
She smirked. “As a matter of fact, I stole one years ago.”
<
br /> The doors closed at dusk. Danzell waited for the windows to darken and the night to deepen. When the area around the curved steps cleared of late hour visitors, she bounded up to the front doors, slipped in her key, and pushed her way inside. Johzar followed on her heels and closed the heavy doors with a thud.
The cavernous space swallowed the echo. No moon glimmered through the windows, but an ethereal glow emanated from thousands of captured souls. As her eyes adjusted, the shadows acquired sharper edges. Her boots slid from her feet, and without a sound, she bolted the door separating the spire from the refectory. She sucked in a quiet breath at the sacrilege she was about to undertake.
Johzar lit a lantern, the trepidation in his face outshining hers.
“It’s not harmful to them.” She whispered the words as much to herself as to him. “Use the books to build fires against the shelves. I’ll do the same on the upper levels. Don’t light anything until I’m down.”
Careful of the noise, he began pulling catalogs from the shelves. She sprinted to the stairs and climbed them three at a time. Four flights up, she circled the entire mezzanine, removed the globes from a score of lanterns and set them alight. For each exposed flame, she emptied a vault of its glowing soul and slid a lantern into its place. By the time she’d finished, the first fires had caught, and the rich scent of burning wood drifted across her nose.
She bounded down a flight and exacted the same damage. Time raced ahead of her. She lit only half of the lanterns on the second mezzanine, skipped the first, and joined Johzar on the tiled floor. He’d amassed seven piles of ledgers and histories and worked on his eighth. She poured oil on each of his stacks. “Enough,” she whispered. “We must start the fires.”
Without question, he followed her orders, working in one direction while she hurried in the other. She lit her second lantern and laid it in an oily pile. Smoke and fire rose to greet her.
A latch rattled. Someone tried the door between the refectory and temple spire. She flashed a warning glance at Johzar and mouthed, “Hurry.”
“It’s locked,” a woman’s voice called. “Who locked it?”
Danzell thrust her feet into her boots. She hurried to the next pile, her actions rushed, no time left to ensure a fire started before she dashed onward. Johzar pulled up his cowl, and she mirrored the gesture.
“Where’s the key?” a man behind the door shouted. “Good gods! Find a key!”
“Fire!” the woman’s voice shrilled the alarm. A key fumbled in the lock.
“Now!” Johzar shouted and bolted for the door. Danzell sprinted after him, leaving the last two stacks unlit. Black smoke swirled as the night air invaded the room. She escaped through the open portal and glanced back. The rear door swung wide and the monks spilled across the mosaiced floor.
Johzar tugged on her arm. “We have company.”
She spun. Below her in the street, Sajem and his crew of slavers spread out in a loose arc. “Burning souls!” Sajem roared, mad eyes blazing.
Without a second’s delay, Danzell leapt down the side of the curved steps, Johzar on her heels. She whipped her sword from its sheath and swiped sideways at a slaver running to meet her. The man jumped back, and though her blade cut only air, it opened a lane of escape. “With me!” she yelled without looking back and ran along the Temple’s outer wall.
“Behind you,” Johzar shouted. Sajem bellowed orders for pursuit.
Ahead of Danzell, frantic monks fled like mice from the refectory’s rear door, wailing “fire.” The first bell clanged in the starless night. Danzell pressed on, no time to worry about Johzar keeping up. She dodged through the commotion alongside the emptying building. Across the city, more bells sang out the alarm, and dogs barked at the clamor. New shouts entered the chaos as citizens and soldiers poured into the streets. The spire’s windows glowed with amber light.
Slavers bulled toward her from the left. She veered right, past the refectory door. Swords clashed at her back, and new screams added to the commotion. “Go!” Johzar yelled, and though he tempted her, she rotated to face the charge. She danced forward and drew off an attacker. With a grunt, she parried a slashing strike and ceded with the force of her opponent’s blade. Her arm dropped and reversed, gashing the woman’s exposed thigh. Johzar’s blade laid a man’s stomach open below his armor, the cut fatal. They turned to run, the path to freedom rapidly collapsing as the roads clogged with water wagons and Sajem’s slavers charged after them.
Danzell felt herded. Perhaps it was her own feet leading her down paths she’d traveled a hundred times, she couldn’t guess. She sprinted ahead of Johzar through an alley, knowing that the place they headed offered no way out. The walls and arches of the catacombs loomed ahead.
“No chance Draeva disobeyed?” she asked over her shoulder.
“We’ll need to fight our way out.” Johzar gritted his teeth in pain, his ankle hobbling him. They bolted through the entranceway, crossed the broken courtyard, and ducked beneath the arches. Lunging ahead, he shoved open the door to the massive tomb. He spun to one side, and she to the other, lost in the thick blackness but for the bloody glow lighting the outside sky. Anyone entering would face the gauntlet nearly as blind.
Danzell peered across at him, his handsome face carved by shadows. He smiled, a small thing but full of warmth. “I’m glad I stole that kiss.”
“I, as well.” She returned the smile, her heart trembling. The future of all Ezar hinged on the next fight, the next moments, and yet the one thing crowding her thoughts was the man gazing at her across the gap.
Outside the catacombs, Sajem raved and howled. Minutes crawled by until a blaze of torches reached through the doorway and flickered on the columns. Slavers exploded into the space in a tumbling torrent as if thrust from behind. Danzell struck once and backed away from the swords that flailed in a panicked frenzy. Slavers tripped over downed fellows and fled from the door as Sajem shoved his way inside.
His madness saturated the room beyond the confines of his body. He’d stripped to the waist, and the black ink of his skin rippled with the surge of his blood. Muscles flexed and bulged across his shoulders and chest. He wore a leather slaver’s skirt, vambraces on his forearms and greaves on his shins. His soulstone dangled on a gold chain around his neck. In the torches’ writhing light, he raised balled fists to the ceiling and roared, a thing beastly and horrifying. In the stone tomb, the sound bounced from the arches and shook dust from the ceiling.
Danzell pressed her back against the wall as cowed as his slavers, joints welded into place. She caught a glimpse of Johzar in the smoky torchlight, fury and fear etching gullies across his face.
Sajem cast his burning gaze around the room until it landed on her, and he advanced, sword poised to cleave through bone. She would fight, and she would lose, but she’d take him with her.
Johzar’s voice rang out at Sajem’s back, its power reverberating off the walls, “Kill her, it’s treason.”
Sajem spun. “What does it matter? I’m already guilty.”
“Ezalion?” Danzell whispered. “You murdered my sister.”
Sajem’s sword slashed the air, and torchlight licked the blade as if he wielded fire. He stalked toward Johzar. “I’m going to kill you first. Then after I bury her, I’m going to eat and shit gold.”
His tattooed back presented a broad target. Danzell raised her sword for the lunge that would steal his life. The edge of a blade at her throat stopped her. The woman with serpents on her arms whispered in her ear, “Let them fight. Johzar wins, you’re both free.”
“He won’t win.” She murmured the words, the realization terrifying. Despite all Johzar’s talent with a blade, he couldn’t best such an animal, a collection of cruel souls with a penchant for violence and the skills to match. Wisdom would prove no match for madness. Once Sajem cut Johzar to pieces, he’d add her blood to the gore, and there was nothing she could do to prevent it.
Johzar grinned at the monster, sword tip drawing circles in the ai
r as he loosened his wrist. He gripped a dagger in his other hand, poised and steady, resolve glowing in his pale eyes. In a slight crouch, he circled to the left. Sajem’s slavers stuck to the walls, content to let them fight.
Sajem rotated in the room’s center, lips thinned in a feral leer. His sword continued to flay the light as if possessed by its own wild hunger. Johzar leapt in, a mere test. Sajem’s blade smashed down and twisted. It ripped Johzar’s weapon from his hand and sent it skidding across the stone floor. Johzar paused, startled.
“Pick it up,” Sajem ordered and licked his pointed teeth.
Eyes never leaving the slaver, Johzar edged to his sword and snatched it up. He assumed a more cautious stance. Sajem bolted forward. Steel clashed, and this time Johzar hung on. He dropped his dagger, gritted his teeth, and battled with both hands on the sword’s hilt.
Sajem fought without effort. His sword swung in lazy arcs, then hammered his opponent’s blade like a club. He darted in with wasp-like precision, the tip of his weapon leaving trickling red stings. He knocked Johzar’s sword aside, rotated, and planted a heel on his chest.
The woman beside Danzell hitched a breath. Danzell flinched at Johzar’s gasp, the panic in his eyes as he fell back. Sajem laughed, let him rise and collect his weapon. Danzell gripped her hilt. If death awaited them, why not finish it? The woman’s blade pressed harder on her neck, cutting her skin.
Johzar stood, bent like an old man. His eyes found her with an expression so forlorn it broke her heart. Unwanted tears blurred her vision, dangerous and unstoppable. He raised his sword and shuffled left. Sajem dodged his first strike, but Johzar rolled inside the madman’s reach and threw an elbow into the grinning mouth. Sajem didn’t flinch. He grabbed Johzar’s head, hugged it to his chest, and laughed, blood on his filed teeth. Johzar kicked, blinded by the arm across his eyes, sword flailing for a strike. Sajem gripped the blade, bloodying his fingers, and yanked it from Johzar’s hand. He strode in a circle, roaring, and dragged his struggling victim with him. And when he’d had enough, he ran the sword across Johzar’s throat and held him up while the blood pulsed down his chest.
Legacy of Souls Page 25